Emergency Measures
by Kshar
Summary: Prentiss, Reid, and hospital chairs, post-"Amplification".


Emergency Measures

by Kshar

Disclaimer: Characters are the property of CBS, and are used without permission.

xx

It's late by the time Prentiss and Rossi get there, and the night-shift nurses aren't pleased to see them, but an FBI badge and Rossi's charm can get you in a lot of places.

Hospitals are never truly quiet. Even at night in the wards, with the room lights dimmed, there's a hum of electricity underneath it all that reminds her of the bullpen at night: objects are at rest only while the lull lasts, and the slightest push will set them spinning again.

The first thing she notices when she walks into his room is Morgan, legs akimbo, asleep in a chair. There's an empty plastic cup on the arm.

Reid is only the second thing she notices. He is curled on his side with his face to the wall, and she can see his hipbone like a blade through the sheets.

"We're too late," she murmurs from the doorway, disappointed. She'd hoped this was going to be a happy team reunion scene, something they could laugh about in a bar ten years from now. As it is, the stale-clean scent of the hospital makes her nervous, and they were _this_ close to a national disaster today, and this close to losing Reid.

She sees Rossi nod from the corner of her eye. "It's been a long day," he says, and he's keeping his voice low, too. "For everyone."

She turns to look at him. The light is behind him, flourescent rays of green tinting his complexion. For once, he looks his age.

xx

Rossi goes home to feed his dogs and sleep. She imagines he'll sleep soundly, knowing he did everything right today. Of course, she can't imagine him restless or out-of-sorts--Rossi under fire is as cool as cool can be.

She wants that coolness herself, but she isn't sure she'll ever have it. She waits too long before speaking and then says the wrong things. She lets her anger get the better of her, and then hates herself for it. She can't imagine what it feels like to go home knowing you did everything right.

The side lighting in the room leaves Morgan and the chairs illuminated, and as she watches, Morgan passes a hand over his eyes and then sighs, settling deeper into sleep, and straightens his legs so that his feet almost touch the bed. She smiles, and holding her briefcase to her side, steps over his legs to sit in the other chair.

xx

She's getting caught up in her book when she hears the change in Reid's breathing, and then the shift of the mattress as he turns over. She places her bookmark on the open page but doesn't close her book, and then she looks up at him.

His eyes are red-rimmed; skin pale and cheeks sunken. It makes her skin go cold to think that this happened in a day, that this morning they were riding the elevator together and she was thinking about morning coffee and whether anyone had bought more sweetener.

"Emily," he says.

"Not you, too," she says, and although his brow crinkles in confusion, she doesn't explain any further. Instead, she leans down to reach into the briefcase at her feet. "Rossi was here," she says as she straightens again, and drops two books on the bed. "He's going to come by again tomorrow."

Reid nods, his hand reaching over the top of the sheet. She has observed this in him before. If a book is in front of him, he has to touch it.

"_Candide_," he says, running careful fingertips over the cover. "This was in my desk."

"I took the liberty," she says, and at his look, glances down. "Emergency measures." She points to the book with an open hand. "Looks like a laugh riot."

"'To fondle the snake that devours us until it has eaten our hearts away,'" Reid quotes absently.

"Like I said."

He pushes the book over to the side to look at the one underneath it. His hands are steady, graceful, in contrast to his ragged appearance.

"_Rendezvous With Rama_," he says, turning the book over and examining the tattered binding. "Did you buy this for me?"

She shakes her head, then has to push her bangs out of her eyes with the index finger of one hand. "I had it in my bag. I always bring a book I love, you know?"

"JJ said we wouldn't need our ready bags today."

"I brought it anyway."

"Ever unprepared for anything?" he asks casually.

She clears her throat. "Do you ever not know the answer to a question?"

"Touché," he mutters. He leans back, pulling the books with him, then puts his hand behind his head to straighten the pillow. "Hugo and Nebula winner," he says conversationally.

"It's a good story. Have you read it? I figured I didn't have much chance of finding something you hadn't..." She lets her voice trail off; deliberately tries to still her hands.

"I haven't," he says.

She feels strangely pleased, to have bucked the odds like that. On the drive over, she hadn't been sure that she wanted to give him the book; maybe it was giving too much of herself away. She'd finally decided that Reid probably wouldn't judge her for being a geek, at least; Star Trek fans tended not to cast stones.

"You'll like it," she says finally. "They never figure out the mystery."

"Way to ruin the ending," he grumbles, and turns to the first page.

xx

She watches his hands for another moment before she looks down again; moves her bookmark out of the way. He's talking more slowly, she's noticed, more carefully than his usual gunfire rhythm. Reid sick is something different--they've done three a.m. together on more than one occasion, and his speech and verve didn't fade. This is different.

She's reminded of Colorado, of Reid's deliberate stillness in the days afterward. It's not a happy memory. She's proud, more or less, of the work she did, but if she thinks about it too long she can taste smoke in the back of her mouth, and she gets edgy and has to move around.

If she was a different person, if Reid was a different person, she'd go over and hug him, the way Garcia does when he's gotten back safely by the skin of his teeth, or ruffle his hair like JJ. But she is definitively not Garcia or JJ, and she and Reid only touch when it's spur of the moment, life or death. Anything else would flip the world on its axis, she thinks.

xx

She's distracted by how quickly he reads, the sound of turning pages against the faint pinging heartbeat of machines in the other rooms, against the breath of air conditioning.

She's always been interested in the way he can completely focus on things, to the point of blocking out the world. On the jet, she's seen him keep reading unfettered through turbulence, through Morgan's teasing, through JJ squeezing past him to the window seat and almost falling in his lap. Emily likes to read, but she doesn't have that kind of resolve--she gets distracted by sirens in the street below, or by the sound of her neighbor's television, or by memories, and then she has to put her book down until she can keep the stories straight in her head.

Reid licks his finger and turns another page. "You're staring at me," he says, without looking up.

"Sorry," she says, flustered. "I--sorry. I was thinking."

He moves his finger back to his lip, still without breaking his gaze on the page in front of him. "What were your conclusions?"

She is reminded of chess games; of Gideon. She stops, and thinks about what to say. Then her breath comes out in a rush. It's been such a long day. "My conclusions were that you must be tired, and I should probably go and let you get some rest."

"I slept for five hours already," he says. "Although it's probably better if you go. You don't want to end up like Morgan."

They both look toward the other chair, and as if on cue, Morgan takes a deep, rasping breath in, then turns his face further toward the wall.

"He's going to regret falling asleep there in the morning," she says, and talking about it reminds her that she isn't comfortable either, and she slips a hand behind her back to rub the base of her spine through her shirt. "These chairs should be outlawed."

"That seems a little excessive," says Reid. "I've waited in a lot of hospitals, and I've never had a problem with them."

Emily raises an eyebrow. "You must have more padding on your ass than I have."

"Actually--" he starts, but she raises an index finger to stop him.

"Don't. Do not say anything. It's late, cut me some slack."

Reid looks disappointed. "I was just going to mention that anatomically, women--"

"Don't think I won't climb up there and kick your ass."

"Point taken," says Reid, and turns back to his book. His lips twitch: once, twice. "My less padded ass," he adds in an undertone.

Morgan's empty Jello cup is a tempting weapon.

xx

Still, she doesn't leave. The window behind his head reflects the room back at them in dark mirror, and when he finishes both books she hands him her own, without a word, and leans her chin on her hand, almost dozing. Morgan snores again, and she kicks his shoe absently.

"You don't have to stay," Reid says again, and gestures toward the doorway with his hand.

He leaves his hand out, open-palmed, on the bed next to him. She looks at his hand for a long moment, his tapered fingers curled back toward him in repose. She leans forward a little and covers the ends of his fingers with the palm of her own hand, the kind of awkward-touching that seems to be the only touching the two of them can do. The world doesn't move, not even a bit. "Reid, shut up," she says, and amazingly, he does.

xx

End.

xx

Feedback of any kind would be gratefully received. Thanks for reading.

Kshar

September 2009


End file.
